Fig. 6: Interaction between Serratia infection and blood feeding in Ae. aegypti.

Schematic depicting the infection and blood-feeding experimental design (a). Infection density and prevalence of CxSm1^RifR in conventional and antibiotic-fed Ae. aegypti (b). The red dotted line indicates the timing of blood meal. Significance was determined using a T-test comparing conventional and antibiotic groups for each time point. Ten mosquitoes were examined at each time point. The capsule indicates antibiotic treatment. Percentage of mosquitoes to take a blood meal for CxSm1^RifR (c) or CxSm2^SmR (d) infected or uninfected mosquitoes. Significance was determined using a one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparisons test, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ****p < 0.0001. Either six (c) or three (d) cups were used for feeding experiments with 50 mosquitoes per cup. The CxSm1^RifR experiment was replicated twice (three cups each and data pooled). Percentage Serratia administered mosquitoes infected with CxSm1^RifR (e) or CxSm2^SmR (f) blood-fed, or non-blood-fed groups. Fisher’s exact test was used to determine significance. Samples size is indicated for each group above the bars.